“France prefers to look things in the face”, Hollande said in a diplomatic speech.
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Fekl said there is an imbalance in the negotiations in favour of the United States side.
The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is probably best known by its acronym, TTIP – not to be confused with the TPP, the trans-Pacific trade deal that President Barack Obama is hoping will get through Congress. However, since the referendum vote to leave the European Union, there has been speculation that the United Kingdom will try and reach its own trade deal with the U.S. and that the collapse of the TTIP could make that easier.
In May, Hollande already expressed his skepticism about the negotiations, saying he would “never accept” the deal in its current guise because of the rules it enforces on France and the rest of Europe.
German economy minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Sunday that TTIP was “finished”, as the two parties had failed to agree on a single point in the 27 negotiation chapters.
“Insofar as assuring the [US] President of Ireland’s contribution to this, we have made it perfectly clear that we will work with our European colleagues and American connections to get this across the line”, he told an economic conference in the US embassy past year. But he too said it would be hard to reach a deal before Obama left office at the end of the year. He they were too friendly to USA businesses. “We are continuing to work toward a goal of completing those negotiations before the end of the year”. The EU’s public report on the latest stage of the talks reads as though they are still in a starting phase.
“That means the end” of the talks, not a suspension, he said, adding he would officially make the demand at an European Union trade minister meeting at the end of September. Italy’s Economic Development Minister Carlo Calenda said in an interview with Corriere della Sera that talks are going ahead but will require many more months.
Looming elections in Germany and France next year as well as the USA presidential elections later this year always looked like they could derail this trade deal until a new set of politicians, or the same with new mandates, might be around to give TTIP or a modified form of it a new lease of life.
Chief EU negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero played down Mr Gabriel’s talk of failure, and in Washington, Matt McAlvanah, assistant USA trade representative for public affairs, insisted the negotiations “are in fact making steady progress”. To anti-globalization activists both on the left and on the right, the deal attempts to make multinational corporations unaccountable to national governments. Many of these directly concern the agri-food industry, from USA reticence to recognise EU protected designated origin status for certain food names it considers to be generic, such as parmesan, or European fears over having to accept less stringent food safety standards from the US.
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However, a spokesperson for the European Commission, Margaritis Schinas, has said that the European Commission is making steady progress in the ongoing TTIP negotiations. He said he would also demand an end to CETA, the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.
